Be a Man
by chatoyance
Summary: Be a man, his father—no, the mayor—had told him. And after what might have been the thousandth time he had heard it, Fred decided to listen, to try and be a man even though he was still only a boy. Mystery Incorporated.


He was alone. Truly, utterly alone for the first time in years, and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it. Instead, he felt numbness around the edges of his heart as he lay on the carpet in the back of the van, breathing in the dust and the dog fur that had been left behind by friends that he had turned away from. No, he had no friends anymore. He had no family. He had nothing but the van and the ghosts of Brad and Judy lingering in the back of his mind.

_Be a man_, his father—no, the mayor—had told him. Any time he had scraped his arm while playing out in the yard by himself, or felt miserable because Ethan and Gary had called him names, the mayor would look down at him from behind a shield of thick-rimmed glasses, his face twisted into that scowl that he would wear until the last day Fred saw him, and he would say something like, "Tap-dancing possums, Fred. Grow up and be a man."

And after what might have been the thousandth time he had heard it, Fred decided to listen, to try and be a man even though he was still only a boy. He learned how to swallow his emotions and move on, brushing off harsh words with a nod and a smile, and all the while some dark feeling grew in the pit of his stomach, eating him up inside until he pushed it further down. He had memories of lying alone in the shadowy house, far too big for the two of them, filled with taxidermy animals and antlered heads, and he would stare up at the moose head with the dark eyes, and talk. Just talk, saying all the things that he could not say to the mayor, explaining at length the daily woes of being Frederick Jones, and the moose would gaze down at him with unblinking eyes.

The moose did not tell him that he was a coward. The moose did not tell him to be a man. The moose only stared down at the boy as he poured his heart out, and the darkness lifted out of him slowly. Fred continued to do this well into his teenage years, and he knew it was childish, but he couldn't help but feel comforted by that old moose, now covered in dust but still hanging over the mantle, watching him.

There was no moose in the back of the van, he mused, only a young man who had disappeared without a trace several weeks ago, and he suspected that nobody had bothered to look for him. This wasn't how he had imagined things would work out. He had always pictured the five of them living together in a house on the cliffs, running a detective agency out of the basement, solving mysteries and setting traps for criminals, like they were meant to. He and Shaggy would have bunk beds in a room with a big window so he could see the whole town when he woke up, and across the hallway the girls would have a large room (because girls liked that sort of thing, he had decided) decorated in purple and orange. That was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life, with his friends by his side, righting wrongs forever. Now here he was, lying in a van alone, having cut those friends out of his life, trapped in a cage of his own creation. Perhaps he deserved it.

He had spent much of his childhood alone, reading old Hardy Boys mysteries until their spines crackled with old glue and dust, and his only friends had been the taxidermy animals and the characters in his mystery books. That was, until he met the gang, and he can't remember the details of their meeting clearly, but the four of them clicked immediately. He finally felt like he had belonged somewhere, with people who shared his passion for mystery solving, people who didn't ridicule him like the mayor and the sheriff, and he found himself talking with the animals in the house less and less. The gang had given him purpose, completed a part of him that he hadn't known was missing, and now that they were gone, he felt an emptiness that he couldn't shove away. And it was his fault.

He remembered how Daphne had pleaded with him. He remembered the feel of her skin when he lifted a hand to touch her cheek briefly before he turned on his heel and swiftly walked away from the cliff. He heard her voice crack as she called his name and his footsteps quickened, carrying him past the sheriff's car and the mayor's scowling face, toward the mystery machine, where he stopped for a moment, his fingers brushing against the door handle as his heart gave a painful jolt, that darkness rising up in his throat again. He swallowed it and opened the door to the van, and that was the last he had seen of them. He didn't even bother to look in the rearview mirror as he sped away, because he knew that if he did, he would change his mind completely.

He heard her voice in the back of his mind sometimes, and it closed around his heart like a bear trap, sharp barbs digging into him. He was sorry now. He was so sorry, and by the time he had thought of apologizing to her, he realized that his phone had died and he didn't have a charger with him, and he was still afraid to face her in person after he had walked away.

Perhaps the mayor had been right after all; maybe he was a coward.

Fred sat up in the dark, lifting his hand to his neck and pulling at the knot of his ascot until it fell into his lap, crumpled and dirty. He put it into his pocket, stood up and climbed over the edge of the front seat until he was sitting in the driver's spot. A quick glance in the rear view mirror showed him someone he barely recognized; a blond young man with dark circles under his eyes, his hair wild and a scruffy sort of beard creeping along his jaw. He sighed and looked away from the mirror, turning the key in the ignition, and the mystery machine roared to life, her headlights shining forth into the fog like a beacon in the darkness.

That was the moment he decided he needed to go home, back to the moose with the dark eyes and the large empty house. He wasn't sure if it was his home anymore, but he needed to go, that familiar dark feeling in his gut spurring him on as he pressed the gas pedal and the van lurched forward. There was so much he needed to do. He needed to find Brad and Judy, if they were still alive and well. He needed to find his friends, gather them to him and mend that part of him that had broken outside of the Spanish church that one night. He needed to tell Daphne that he was sorry for what he had done.

He just hoped he wasn't too late.

He started to drive.


End file.
